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The night sky hung in pitchy darkness over the wilderness. It was a strange sort of wilderness with fences and signs pointing hither and thither and handicapped-accessible restrooms around every corner, but it was still the wilderness - the West, where Shelly called home.
She and Colt walked in silence for the most part - there was something about the atmosphere of the night that seemed to tell them both that it was appropriate, leaving the only sounds to be heard the crunching of shoes on gravel and an occasional leaf. Gradually, the crunching became more of a solid hitting sound - the gravel path became more solid underfoot, and the buildings rimming it about grew in height until they scraped against the sky, wood and mortar giving way to towering creations of metal and glass… with lights plastered all over them, lighting the area around them with unearthly multicolored light.
“I never liked going through here,” Shelly muttered. Even now, she didn’t like it - it rumbled in the back of her head uncomfortably. She was forced to admit it was no different from the sandy deserts and squat wood shacks of home, but … she just didn’t like regardless. There was something visceral about it - and being there at night seemed to make it worse somehow.
Beside her, Colt nodded slowly. “It’s a strange place,” he admitted . “Strange folk. Out of my jurisdiction. They have their own sheriff over here, I think.”
“Mmm.” Shelly grunted passively. The glare of the tube-shaped lights was incessant - Shelly wondered how they worked, exactly, then stopped and blinking, wondering how she’d never asked that before. Strange… being out here in the night was doing weird things to her brain, it seemed.
A footstep sounded behind them.
“H - Hey - hey there, fellas. What’re you doing around these parts at this time of night?” A loud burping shortly followed.
Shelly was immediately bristling, raising her fists, her lips twisting back into a scowl of determination - but as luck as would have it, it was not to be. (Actually, she was kind of disappointed… she’d been hoping that there would be a chance all night to unload a can of proper whoop-ass.)
“Hey, wait, hang on-” Colt interrupted, gingerly laying a hand on her arm. “We don’t - there’s no need for that yet, is there?”
“I don’t know, is there?” Shelly was glaring at their accoster - a woman at least a head and a half shorter than Shelly herself, decked from head to toe in a loose-ish jumpsuit, holding a broad red helmet beneath her arm. Her reddish-auburn hair was closely cropped and barely fell past her ears.
The only other distinguishing feature was the can in her other hand - the one she kept drinking from as she stared at them with wide eyes, almost glass in the light of the glass tubes.
“Couldn’t I ask why you’re out here?” Colt hazarded.
The woman seemed taken aback for a moment. “I had to get - get more drinks,” she said after a moment. “Ran out at the - the warehouse. Can’t - couldn’t - needed to sleep. Gotta get buzzed, you know?” she laughed. “Also I think I belong here? And you-” another burp somehow bigger than the last now. “-you’re that cop from over yonder, aren’t you? Nice.” She smiled, a smile that was somehow too wide and not wide enough all at once, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Max.”
Colt accepted the gesture, though he withdrew his hand with some amount of surprise in his face, wiping his palm rather vigorously on his jeans afterwards. “Right. Well. Yes, that’s me, and this is… Shelly. She’s a, uh, a criminal.”
Max blinked. “Oooh… sick, I guess. Dope. Crime. Nice, I probably ought to do something about that, but... “ she stopped and drank deeply from her can, slopping green liquid from the corners of her mouth and down her suit. Shelly cringed. “Well, it’s late and I’m looking for more drinks anyway - so I can get to s-s-s-sleep.” Max’s fingers drummed rapidly on the outside of the can. “The drinks - well, they’re so easy to come by during the day, I just - I just - I just do my work and they’re always there. I drink them and flash the logo for the kids… all day. But at night - night - night? Ev-everything’s closed.”
She finished the can and dropped it, withdrawing another than she’d apparently had tucked inside her belt. It made a distinct hissing sound as it opened.
“Well, that’s nice,” Colt replied awkwardly. He’d backed up a step or two, letting Shelly stand between him and Max - well, he was, if nothing else, a coward. “We’re heading to the gift shop ourselves. We have… actually, we’re only going there because it was in our fortune, or something. Tara read it out of the cards.”
“Oh.” Max seemed uninterested. “The gift shop is closed now, though.” She drank again, speaking while doing so. This was a … messy process. “Ah’d mow dith ahcause Ah’d gah thah if twasna.” She wiped her face on her sleeve. “They sell energy drinks there… but I’m too busy days and it’s closed nights. What’re you doing th-th-there anyway?”
Shelly cocked an eyebrow. “I’m going to break in,” she said. “We’re looking for a wheel of fortune, I think. That was what was on the card, at least.”
“Break in?” Max’s eyes were wide. “Whoa… are you - are you supposed to be doin’ that?”
Shelly nodded. “I’m a criminal - I’m supposed to be doing things I’m not supposed to do. Right, Colt?”
Colt nodded sheepishly. “It makes sense to me.”
“Whoa.” Max tapped her foot rapidly against the ground. “Epic. Rad. Never thought of it like th-th-that.” She looked mournfully down at her can. “I need … need more energy drink. I can’t - can’t sleep otherwise. Feel like shit. But you two are g-going to the gift shop... “
“Wait, are you about to ask what I think you’re about to ask?” Shelly interrupted. “I don’t think that’s a good-”
“I’m gonna roll with the two of ya,” Max announced. “Yeah. Sick. Tubular. I mean - I mean, I bet you need protection from me anyway… superhero that I am. Zip zip zap zap!” She laughed. “And I can get something to drink… I’m so thirsty. I need - I got to have -” she cut herself to drink deeply again.
“No,” Shelly said.
“Yes,” Colt said.
“Wait, the hell you mean?” Shelly looked down at Colt, aghast. “Why? I can protect myself just fine.”
“Yeah, but Shelly-” Colt’s voice was low. “Think about it. Three is always better than two, isn’t it? More ideas? Better brainstorming?”
“I don’t think any ideas are coming from her any time soon,” Shelly said.
“Let’s go, guys,” Max said. “We’ve got - got - got just a couple hours till it’s time for me to wake up and get to w-w-w-work.” She was drinking again, and seemingly losing half of it down her shirt.
“Fine,” Shelly relented. “She can come if she wants. I guess it can’t hurt… probably. And maybe she’d be a … distraction or something, I don’t know.”
What would Max be distracting, exactly? Well, Shelly wasn’t sure… but if there was something that needed distracting … she was wearing a jumpsuit that was nearly as bright as the noonday sun would attract plenty of attention, even in the pitchy darkness.
Unfortunately, it turned out that, aside from being seemingly endlessly thirsty, Max was also talkative , and now they were walking in constant one-sided conversation the woman babbled on about her energy drinks and her friends and her enemies and her job … by the time the three of them had arrived at the gift shop, Shelly was fairly sure she would be capable of writing this ‘Bibi’s’ autobiography for her.
But no - at least they were here. At last they were here. The gift shop … it loomed dark and stony in the darkness of the night. The glass doors were dark and the light emanating from it was the faint red glow of EXIT signs giving everything an.. unearthly hue. There was an icebox - one with a glass door, behind which rows and rows of beverages were marked for sale.
Shelly noticed this - and a split second later, Max did too, pushing both of them aside and plastering herself against the locked doors.
“See!” she said, pointing, gesturing wildly. “I told you - told you! Energy drinks… god, they look so good. I gotta have them. I gotta. I gotta. I gotta.” Was she… drooling? Yes, yes she was. “I’ll finally get some sleep tonight. S-s-surge will be proud of me, probably. Sick! Sick.”
Colt smiled awkwardly. “Okay, well… I guess this is on you, Shelly. We’re almost there now.”
“Right.” It occurred to Shelly just then that she didn’t actually know how to pick a lock… she’d never needed it before. Piper’s store was never locked when she went there to rob it… and the safe there was ostensibly locked, but actually, she just knew the combination. “Um.”
Now she cleared her throat.
“Can’t you-” Colt gestured at the door. “It’s locked, but...
“Right, uh…” Shelly frowned. She couldn’t give up - not this far along… but how? She really only had one idea left. “Max, back up.”
“What? Huh? O - okay?” Max took a step or two away from the door.
Shelly took off her bandanna and wrapped it around her fist, stepping up to the door, eyeing with bated breath and pounding heart the glass panel in it…
CRASH
Broken glass flew in every direction.
The gift shop was open.
And was that… movement in there?
“YES!” Max was on the move already, scrambling through the hole in the door, fast as lightning, tripping in the pitch darkness on something on the floor only to pick herself up and practically hurl herself in the direction of the icebox.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Shelly asked Colt.
Colt hesitated. “Probably. She knows what she’s doing, I guess.”
Shelly watched as the woman yanked open the ice box, immediately slumping down with her back against the open door, opening a can and dumping it wholesale into her mouth. “If you say so,” she replied. Then her attention was drawn back to the whole reason they’d come here in the first place.
The wheel of fortune.
Or, well, the sign on it said ‘Spin the Wheel of Discounts and get Lucky’... but that was the same thing, right? Maybe? Damn it, couldn’t Tara have been more specific? Would it have killed her?
As Shelly and Colt approached the wheel, though, something of a commotion became apparent behind them.
“Are you going to pay for those?” a voice came, thick and raspy. “You’re making such a mess in my store.”
“I don’t - I shouldn’t - I don’t need to pay,” Max returned. “I’m a superhero. I get free drinks. Energy drinks. So good - so good -”
“No! You have to pay. Give me that right now-”
It was only just then that Shelly became aware of where the voice was coming from - clinging to the rafters above, with wide eyes glinting in the light of the icebox, a figure hung upside down. Or, well, had hung upside down - because all of the sudden she let herself fall squarely on top of Max, hitting her on the head with what appeared to be a clothes-hanger and snatching the can from her hands.
“HEY!” Max shouted. “Who hit - give me that!”
“Store property!” the girl hissed. “Thief!” She backed up a step or two - backing straight into Shelly - a bump that caused her to jump and cry out herself - cry out before Shelly reached out and grabbed ahold of the back of her collar before she had a chance to scuttle away.
She turned - Shelly caught a glimpse of rows of jagged teeth. The woman’s eyes were wide, stained by deep purple bags beneath. “OH!” she exclaimed. “Y-you’re - you - brawlers - oooh... “
She dropped the can - Max scooped it up off the floor.
“We’re nothing of the sort,” Shelly snapped. “But you’d better explain the meaning of this - this place … or else you are going to be another stain on Max’s suit over there.” She balled her other fist again. “You’ve got three… two… one ... “
The woman didn’t flinch. “Oooh, I hope you leave a mark.”
Shelly stopped dead, nonplussed. “What?”
“Brawlers,” the woman repeated. She cleared her throat, though it didn’t make it any less raspy. “I’m - I’m Colette. I work here… and I… brawlers. I love you. I think of you… all the time. Then I work here. And I think of you.”
“Of me ?” Shelly returned, thoroughly disturbed.
Colette shook her head. “Brawlers. Not just… any. All. You too.” She nodded rapidly, flailing her hair about. “I - I love you all. And I work here.”
Colt stepped forwards, having watched everything from a safe distance behind Shelly. “Right, uh… what I think my friend here is trying to ask is, uh, what do you know about Piper? Or dreams or… the wheel of fortune? Or anything?”
Colette looked at him. “Know?” she echoed. “I know Piper. I love Piper. I love brawlers. Brawlers... “ she glanced behind him at the wheel - and suddenly her voice became much more normal. “The Wheel of Discounts is available to any customer who spends $50.00 or more on non-red-tagged items from Monday to Friday (it is closed on weekends!) Step up, spin the wheel, and win big discounts on all officially licensed Starr Park merchandise! Disclaimer: purchase necessary to win. No reward is guaranteed. Starr Park, it’s subsidiaries and employees are not responsible for results, whether positive or not, from the wheel. Attempting to tamper with the wheel will result in winnings being revoked.”
“Um. Right.” Colt scratched his head. Shelly hoped he had gotten more out of that than she had. “And dreams?”
Colette blinked. “Let go, Shelly,” she asked, squirming - and hearing her own name in such a raspy voice was enough of a shock that Shelly did, in fact, let go. Had she told the woman her name?
Dropped to the floor, Colette reached under her jacket (?) and produced a thick book, flipping madly through it - settling at last on two blank pages at the end of it.
“I know about Brawlers,” she rasped. “I work here in the store. I know about brawlers. I work in the store. And other… other things, I ... “ she took a pen and made a thick circle on the pages, enclosing empty space. Her voice faltered. “I… it hurts. My head. My head hurts.”
“Are you… saying you don’t know anything ?” Colt echoed.
“I know brawlers. I know customer service.” Colette smiled - too widely, before pointing to her empty circle again. “I want… autographs,” she added. “Maybe I … you put your signature … the headache, it fills. Brawlers, yes?”
Shelly and Colt looked at each other.
“Are you okay ?” Shelly asked.
Colette blinked. “Am I… I … I love you. Brawlers. I love my job. I am … I am that. I am Colette.”
“No, no, this can’t be right,” Colt muttered. “Tara pointed us here. There’s got to be something here - something that we're not seeing. I just know it.”
“Did she trick us?” Shelly posed. “Because if she did, I’ll go back there and there and make sure all that’s left of her are those shadows.” She grit her teeth.
“No, no, I don’t think so... “ Colt was clearly frustrated. “I just can’t… I don’t know what we’re missing. What are we missing?”
“Missing?” Colette cut in. “Maybe I can find… missing merchandise.” She nodded, gesturing up to the store’s front counter. “Behind the counter. Stockrooms. Backrooms. Missing things are found there.”
There was a door where she pointed - Shelly could see it only faintly by the light of Max’s energy drink icebox - with a sign posted on it.
‘STARR PARK STAFF ONLY’
Shelly tilted her head, a question suddenly occurring to her, one that had… never really come to mind before.
“Say, Colt… what is ‘Starr Park’?”
She felt sick to her stomach.